


i was made to keep your body warm

by amorias



Series: i was born to tell you i love you [1]
Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assassin AU, Exchange Student AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 22:09:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1915674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorias/pseuds/amorias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The lives that Hanai and Tajima could have lived always lead to them ending up together, somehow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i. assassins

**Author's Note:**

> mostly a place to dump little AU one-shots! i'll add to it whenever i get around to it. fair warning, some of these will be really silly and stupid.

“There's a dead body on my floor. There's a dead body _on my goddamn floor._ ”

Tajima looks up disinterestedly from the magazine he's reading, his feet not shifting from their place on the table and his ass not moving from its spot on the couch. “First of all, it's  _our_ floor, and also Azusa, where else am I supposed to keep it!” He looks back to the magazine. “You know they won't pay up until there's proof.”

Hanai rubs his temples, leaning his elbows against the counter and reminding himself over and over that he's lucky to have Tajima around, because he's a goddamn prodigy at assassinating people, and that he always has been. He lets out a breath, reminding himself that it's his own fault for letting himself get into this mess.

They met two years ago, through the agency. For some reason or another, they ended up both being contacted for an assassination, and were forced to work together even though Hanai denied wanting to have anything to even do with the kid with a dirty face and freckles across his nose. He looked and sounded like a 12 year old, even though he claimed to be just as old as Hanai, but he managed to kill people so swiftly and cleanly that it made him jealous. The kid was a natural, but what was even creepier was the happy demeanor he kept up when he wasn't on a job – Hanai was sure that this guy should be out playing baseball instead of murdering people for quick cash.

And from there, it snowballed into something that made Hanai want to rip his hair out at every possible moment, because everywhere he looked Tajima was tailing him like a lost puppy.

“Azusa!” He called, dragging out the last syllable so much that Hanai had to tense every muscle in his body to avoid strangling him. “Azusa, when are we going on our next job?”

Hanai turns around, staring down the boy with too much energy and talent for his own good.

“Number one: it's Hanai. Do not ever call me Azusa. In fact, it should be Hanai-san, because I'm older than you and I've been doing this longer than you.”

Tajima opens his mouth to protest, to refute the idea that he's younger than the other teenager, but he's cut off by Hanai lifting a second finger in his face.

“Number two: There is no 'we' or 'our.' There's only mine, and your's, got it, kid?”

With that, he shoves his hands into his pockets and turns on his heel to walk away, until Tajima calls after him: “I think we could work together!”

And that is what set the precedent for the freckled boy never leaving him alone, and following him around, and eventually forcing himself into Hanai's heart no matter how much he wanted to deny it, and that is how a dead body ended up on his floor.

“C'mere, Azusa. You're so wound up all the time,” Tajima says, biting back a smirk. “Makes you look kinda cute.” He wiggles in his seat, sinking into the cushions of the couch. Hanai quirks an eyebrow upwards in some kind of pseudo-irritation, but relents and sits down, letting the freckled boy lay the crown of his head against his shoulder in a moment of comfortable silence.

“Hey, Tajima...”

“Yeah?” He shifts his head to look the taller boy in the eye.

“Can you at least put the body in the bathtub?”

Tajima laughs, and with tears in his eyes and a choked voice can only comment on how much of a mood killer Hanai really is.

 

 

 


	2. ii. foreign exchange student

 Hanai feels tall.

Everyone here seems to short compared to himself, and he clenches his hands behind his back uncertainly as his eyes shift through the other students sitting in front of him, all staring at him.

He swallows.

“My name is Hanai Azusa,” he starts, speech halted and uncertain. His Japanese is good enough, but when everyone is staring at him suddenly all his thoughts don't seem to translate. “Uh... I'm a foreign exchange student from America, but both my parents are from Japan, so...” He lets his eyes wander over to the teacher, who gives him a nod, and he stiffly goes to the empty seat two rows from the back and right next to the window, next to a boy with tan skin and freckles across his nose who is already scrawling out something on a piece of paper, which is flicked over to Hanai's desk.

The sloppy symbols read out “do you like baseball?” and the freckled boy is grinning in a way that makes his nose wrinkle up when Hanai looks at him.

 

“What're they feeding you in America?”

Hanai has only been in class for three days, and Tajima already won't leave him alone. They've talked about everything on Tajima's mind: baseball, misconceptions about America, food, American baseball, who Hanai's favorite team is. Most of the things end up being about America or baseball, which leads the foreigner to assume that those are the only thing the other boy has the capacity to think about.

“What do you mean...”

Tajima leans over his desk, balancing a pencil on his finger and looking at Hanai with wide, earnest eyes before bolting upright and snatching the pencil from the air.

“'Cause like, you're really tall! And I'm really short, so is it 'cause you're from America?”

“Uhh...” Hanai doesn't really know how to respond to that, or how to react to the way Tajima is talking to him. He talks really fast, and kind of a lot, and he's always smiling like he's telling a joke, but there is no joke being told. “Maybe? But my parents are Japanese, so I eat a lot of Japanese food when I'm at home.”

Tajima hums a little and leans in towards the other boy, raising an eyebrow. He crosses his arms and sticks his nose up into the air.

“I'm not convinced! I'm gonna say it's 'cause you're from America.”

“Tajima!”

A gruff voice calls out from the door, and when Hanai looks, a boy with downturned eyes and a frown is standing there, another boy with reddish brown hair waving from behind him and grinning stupidly.

“Oh, Captain! Mizutani!” Tajima gets up, crawling over the wrong side of his desk and bounding over to the door. “What's up?”

Hanai watches the exchange until they all look at him, and he can feel his heart drop.

 

“Is this really what high school baseball is like in Japan?”

“Yep! Pretty awesome, isn't it?” Tajima grins, slinging a bat over his shoulder.

Hanai looks around the field with wide eyes, watching as the other members of the baseball team doing batting practice. They've been at it since 5 in the morning, with only classes as a break in between, and the coach seems pretty ruthless.

“Yeah, no kidding...” He breathes.

“You played at your school, right?”

Hanai looks down at Tajima, who is looking right back up at him, eyes wide and shining in the dimming, yellow light.

“Yeah. I mean... well, the school system is different here so it's kind of hard to explain but...” The freckled boy is now smirking, eyebrows slightly raised. Get to the point, Hanai, he's trying to say. Hanai swallows, cheeks heating up a bit before nodding.

Tajima looks out over the diamond again.

“I know you're not here to play baseball, but we need another player. Y'know... if you were interested.”

“Tajima! Get your butt over here, you're up!”

It's the gruff boy again, shouting for their third baseman.

“Yea, yea, Abe, I'm coming!” He stretches out and starts jogging over, before turning around. “Think about it!” He yells to Hanai, and the only thing the foreigner can do is nod.

 

“In America, you call people by their first names, right?”

Tajima rests his chin in his hands, his head tilted slightly as he asks. Hanai has discovered that Tajima is miserably book dumb, especially at things like English and math, and after a week of begging, he finally gave in to helping him with his homework after baseball practice each day. They're sitting in the third baseman's room and have finally gotten down to business when he drops that question.

“Well, yeah,” Hanai confirms with a nod.

“Y'know, Azusa is kinda a girly name here in Japan,” Tajima teases, rolling over onto his back, his arms spread out at his sides. He laughs a little, here, while Hanai rolls his eyes. “Why don't you call me Yuuichirou, since that's how you do it in America?”

The exchange student takes in a deep breath. He looks at the floor, and lets a little bit of a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.

“Sure, Yuuichirou.”


End file.
